Blue Hair Dye
by Ficbunny
Summary: They should be used to easy quests going horribly wrong. Rated T to be safe.
1. Horses

**(A/N I don't own Percy Jackson. I know the summary is bad but I have about a thousand different ideas going through my head at how this could end. Hope you enjoy.)**

Annabeth's POV

As soon I walked across camp border Chiron was there, "Grover needs your help. Nothing major, but a few demons have him trapped in a cave. You and Percy need to go get him out."

"Okay," it sounded simple enough kill a few demons, save my friend, been there, done that, "Where's Percy."

"I don't know, but when you find him I would like him to explain why he bought 80 horses and 320 bottles of blue hair dye."

Laughing I say, "Okay we will meet you at the big house."

I go to find Percy. First I check the beach, but when he isn't there I go look in the cabin. He's not in there either then I check the sword arena, rock wall, and even the archery target, but don't find him. I'm wondering around looking for him when it starts to smell like barn.

Remembering what Chiron said about the horses I took off running towards the smell. I came up to a huge brown building out in the middle of the woods. It had sliding barn doors and fencing surrounded it.

I walked through the little gate and saw a stairwell off to the side of the building. At the top of the stairs there was a platform with a door into the top of the barn.

I knocked on the door and entered.

I came in and was standing on a thin catwalk up in a loft. Lining the other three sides in the loft were stalls with horses in them. There were all different colors black, speckled, white, paint, grey, well you get the point. The one thing they had in common was they all had blue manes.

Shaking my head with a laugh I looked down below at the main floor. It was a huge open area with hay covering the floor and different obstacles everywhere.

There was a little stream flowing in the far left corner and Percy was there with a white horse speckled with black dots. He was just about to mount him when I yelled, "Hey Percy!"

He looked up and waved. Jumping up on the horse he started up a ramp on the far wall. It must be so the horses could get from floor to floor.

Looking around I also noticed a ladder leading up into a third floor. It was admittedly really well built and I wondered who did it.

Percy went over to put up the horse. I walked over to him looking at all the names carved into plaques above the stalls. Lucky, Shadow, Blaze, Faith, Willow, the one Percy was now brushing down's name was Casper.

Stroking Casper's nose I asked, "Who built this place"

Looking up at me he said, "I did." Shocked I looked around, "You built this?" He laughed, "You know you don't have to act so surprised."

I was though how was it possible that seaweed brain could build a place like this and an even better question why?

Curious I asked all the questions that were flying around my head," How did you build all this? Why?" What made you think about it? How did you get the materials? Why do the horses have blue hair?"

He laughed at all my questions as he answered them one by one, "I just found a spot and started building. I got really bored. I was passing a junk yard. Said junk yard could possibly be missing a couple piles of scrap. The horses have blue hair so I know if their mine. Plus how cool is that. It won't wash out."

I raised an eyebrow, "It took you 320 bottles of dye to permanently dye the horse's hair?"

"No, not exactly. At first I just bought about 160 but then we had some issues," he cringed.

"What issues?" I asked curiously. He walked out of the stall shutting the gate behind him and walked towards a shelf with bottles of what, I'm guessing was blue hair dye, from a shelf.

Walking over and grabbing a rope that was hanging off the wall he said, "Well, I found all this permanent hair dye for a dollar a bottle. It wasn't until after that I realized why it was cheap."

He squirted some of the dye on the rope. At first nothing happened, but as the rope absorbed the dye it disintegrated. "It melts stuff so you bought more?" Maybe he wasn't smart after all.

He rolls his eyes at me, "No silly, I just thought that there has to be something that makes it not dissolve stuff right? I snuck into the Hephaestus cabin and took some of their forge chemicals. Mixing them in with the dye made it not dissolve hair."

I was impressed by that, even I wouldn't have thought about that, "What are you going to do with all these horses?"

He chewed on his lip, "I hadn't really thought about that."

Laughing I grabbed his arm and pulled him towards the door, "Come on, seaweed brain we have a quest."

**(A/N, So, what do you think? It might be a while before I update. Or I might just leave it like this I don't know.)**


	2. Prophecy

Annabeth's POV

We walked over to the big house.

When we got there Chiron was waiting for us, "Do I even want to know," he asked Percy. "You told me to find a hobby," Percy said with a shrug.

Chiron just shook his head, "You know where to go."

We climbed up into the attic and walked over to old mummy.

I think she creeps Percy out. Not that she didn't creep everyone else out, but Percy especially seemed to be bothered by her. He just stood off to the side while I walked over to her.

Before I could say anything green mist filled the room.

"_The sea and the wise travel together._

_To save a friend they will face an unknown aggressor._

_They will travel across a desert stream._

_And face a night listening to each other scream._

_They will find what they seek at the edge of a cliff._

_By following the light of hieroglyphs._

_One's last breath could save another._

_But, beware for this trick has been played on the other."_

She laid back down and didn't move.

Thinking about the prophecy we walked downstairs to tell Chiron.

On the way down we came to a silent agreement not to tell Chiron about _'One's last breath could save another.'_

As we told him he stayed completely quiet. He sat there for a couple minutes before he said, "Hmm. It sounds like you need to go through the Yivi desert until you reach Grover."

I'd never heard of Yivi so I asked, "Where is Yivi and why haven't I ever read about it?"

Chiron looked at us sadly, "No one has ever survived through Yivi. They removed all books and even the mortal's myths no longer contain that desert."

Even more confused now I asked, "Why?"

"Well no one really knows but apparently the only thing that keeps people alive is a golden trail. Of course it's a desert so there is water and other hallucinations to distract you and get you off the trail. Plus my guess is sand covers it up."

Percy mumbled, "Fun," under his breath.

Chiron looked thoughtful again, "The part that confuses me is an unknown aggressor." I just shrugged not knowing either.

"I'm sure you guys will figure it out though. Why don't you go pack your stuff and you can get going. I am afraid we can't provide can't provide you with any means of transportation so you will have to take a cab to Arizona then find your way to Yivi. It should be around there somewhere."

Percy said, "Great," and took off to pack his stuff.

I nodded and left to do the same.

When I got to my cabin I thought about the prophecy. _'One's last breath could save another.'_

Usually the prophecy isn't how it sounds, but the whole thing seems so….so obvious. Me and Percy go to save Grover and face a new monster. We travel through Yivi and pass a stream. That night something will attack. Probably something that makes a shrill sound. That would explain the scream part. If we get through that then we follow the hieroglyphs. Which if what Chiron says is true, than that is probably a golden trail leading to a cliff where we will find Grover. I hoped I was wrong, but somehow one of us is going to give up our life to save someone else.

'_This trick has been played...'_ What does that mean? Then it came to me.

Thalia fighting on Half-Blood Hill.

Yeah she is fine now, but I doubt the gods are going to turn another person into a pine tree.

I swallowed hard and packed the rest of my clothes, my dagger, my hat, a hairbrush, some money Greek and regular, and food and water into a duffel bag. I put my phone into my back pocket and go to wait for Percy on Half-Blood Hill.

Percy's POV

I packed my stuff trying not to think about the prophecy.

I know Annabeth probably has the whole thing figured out, but I'm stuck on, _'One's last breath could save another. But beware this trick has been played on the other.' _

There is so many instances where someone has died for someone else, but it seems too obvious.

Maybe I'm just hoping it's too obvious so I don't have to face the fact that I could lose Annabeth or Grover.

"Ugh!" I throw some clothes into my bag and put some drachmas and human money with it. I put some water, a bag of my mom's blue candy, and some other food into my backpack. I make sure Riptide is in my pocket and notice I still have that bottle of hair dye in my pocket.

Not wanting someone to find it and accidently melt their hair off I keep it there.

I jog up the hill to catch up to Annabeth and ask, "You ready?" She nods her head and replies, "As ever."

We step out of the camp and start walking to track down a cab that will take us all the way to Arizona.

I turn to look at Annabeth, "Why are we walking again."

"What," she asks obviously confused.

"I'm pretty sure I have about 80 horses for no reason. Why not ride them?"

She looked pretty mad that I didn't mention that before we already walked 3 miles and turned around back towards camp.

Once we get back to my stable we picked horses.

Annabeth pick a paint named Spirit, and I pick my favorite which is a plain black one with a little mark on his nose. The mark looked like a duck, so of course the horses name is Ducky.

We mount the horses and leave camp for a second time.

Annabeth still hasn't talked to me.


	3. Desert

**(A/N, Crappy chapter sorry. Thanks for reading.)**

Annabeth's POV

168 hours of horse riding.

168 hours of listening to Percy sing every country song he could possibly think of.

168 hours of the worst torture known to man. I would honestly rather get thrown into Tarturus.

Do you know how long it takes to get to Arizona from Manhattan on horse?

Longer than I can possibly take.

The horses only encourage Percy. The louder he sings the faster we go.

It wouldn't be a problem if Spirit didn't try to dance while he sang. Trust me you don't want to ride a dancing horse.

I'm so glad we're almost there.

Since we're on houses we had to go around all major cities. Add that with the fact that every living thing around me, both demi-god and horse has the attention span of a fly and you get a really long trip.

At least Percy talked them into going as fast as possible.

We reached Arizona today, but now we're walking around looking for a desert hidden by the mist.

We'd been looking around when we decided to take a break and get something to eat.

We were in a small town.

If you ever watched a western that's pretty much what it looked like. Tumble weeds and everything.

We rode the horses up to a small breakfast diner called, The Ancient Pancake. Seemed pretty dumb to me.

It wasn't until after we walked through the door we noticed our mistake. We should have seen it coming really hieroglyphs and ancient pancakes, duh. But instead we walked through the door without our bags right into a desert, which if I had to guess I would say it was names Yivi.

Percy noticing our mistake said, "Well carp."

I gave him a weird look.

Who says carp? Leave it to him to find the cheesiest… I was cut off mid thought when Percy said, "Look."

Sure enough he was pointing a little ways over to where a golden path made out of weird shaped stones glowed.

We walked about a mile to reach it. It was solid gold and when you stepped on it it made a click noise that worried me.

We walked and walked without talking. Percy was humming, but he looked like he was about to pass out. I'm sure I looked equally as bad but it seems the sun would never set.

It was probably over 100 degrees, we had no water, and we had been walking for about 4 hours.

I looked to my right and saw a huge pond. It was surrounded by palms and ferns and I wanted to dive in. I almost stepped off the path when the image flickered and disappeared.

I shook my head and turned to see my family and Luke standing there waving at me. I squeezed my eyes shut.

This happened over and over again.

Percy seemed fine though.

I kept glancing at him and he had this unreadable expression. I wondered what he must be seeing and why he wasn't reacting like I was.

Just as that thought went through my head he came to an abrupt stop, spun, and took off running.

Over to our left was a stream.

Since Percy was running that way either it was real or we were sharing a hallucination.

I took off after him and only caught up when he jumped into the small stream. Looking exhausted he said, "I'm staying here tonight."

I started to argue that we shouldn't leave the trail but he went underwater.

Defeated I sighed and sat down. Percy came out of the water to sit next to me, "I'll take first watch you can sleep."

It was only when he said that when I noticed it had gotten dark. I laid down and instantly fell asleep.

For one happy moment I was fine, then the nightmares started.


	4. Nightmares

**(A/N thinking about dropping this story. It seems like no one is reading it. **** )**

_Annabeth's Dream_

_I'm in my own paradise._

_It starts as green fields, but all my designs start popping up. A small town has appeared and I go to look around._

_Inside an indoor beach I planned long ago was Percy shirtless. _

_He started to wave at me when the building collapsed. Piece by piece it fell on top of him._

_I turned around to watch as all my creations fell to the ground._

_The worst sound rang through my daze. Percy's scream of pain._

_I turned to see him being pulled from the rumble with a piece of rebar through his stomach by a giant Cyclops. It picked him up and was about to throw him in his mouth when I went running up to him. _

_Not having a weapon I just kicked and punched him. _

_He dropped Percy and brought up his foot to smash me._

_At the last second I was shoved out of the way. I screamed in horror as Percy got crushed beneath the Cyclops foot._

_The Cyclops disintegrated and I ran to Percy. He was pale and his usual sparkling green eyes were lifeless. _

_I cried and screamed. The image faded but a new worse one came. _

_More and more bombarded me each one worse than the last._

Percy's POV

Once Annabeth fell asleep I went to look around.

I followed the stream a little ways but there was nothing other than desert to see. I did find a skeleton and was looking through his stuff when I heard Annabeth scream. I took what it had which was some money, a water jug, and a pocket knife.

Running to Annabeth thinking about what she said about the noise demon I panicked.

I was surprised to come to see Annabeth perfectly fine but covered in sweat.

Confused I filled up the water jug. I was about to sit next to her when she screamed.

Shaking her awake I asked, "What's wrong?"

She shook her head and wrapped her arms around me, "Nothing I'm fine why don't you sleep and I'll take watch." Warily I laid down and drifted into the worst sleep ever.

_Percy's Dream_

_I was surrounded by crystal waters. It was beautiful. Colorful schools of fish swam around me and I laughed as one tickled against me._

_Usually it wouldn't be a problem, but this time water filled my lungs drowning me._

_I couldn't breathe and was trying to swim to the surface to get air. _

_Once I got there the top was sealed with a glass covering._

_Suddenly the pretty waters were gone and I was drowning in a glass tank. Looking around I threw myself against the glass trying to break through but I was getting weaker by the second._

_The last thing I saw before my vision went black was the gods laughing at my screams. _

_Many other nightmares followed some like that and others, the really bad ones, were of Annabeth dying._

Annabeth's POV

I was sitting next to Percy looking through what he found and thinking about my nightmares.

Glancing over at him a sighed and knew I couldn't live without him. No way would I last a day without his jokes and dumb plans. Before I realized what I was doing I was stroking my fingers through his unruly hair.

I almost crapped my pants when he let out a scream that was so close to the one in my dreams it brought tears to my eyes.

I tried to shake him awake, but he wouldn't stop screaming.

When he finally woke up he shot into a sitting position and looked me in the eyes.

Without saying a word he kissed me, grabbed our stuff, and headed towards the golden trail where we started walking again.

This time holding hands.

**(A/N I know this chapter was rushed but I deleted it and was too lazy to type the exact details sorry. Please review and tell me what you think, good or bad I don't care.)**


	5. Fighting

**Percy's POV**

It took forever, but we finally got through that stupid desert.

I can see why no one ever survived. The water is gone. I don't mean we drank it all but it literally just evaporated. Sand keeps blowing over the gold and if you stray too far you start coughing your lungs out. Also, there are snakes. Not just usual snakes. 8 foot long with two heads snakes.

Needless to say when we came over to a ledge at least 2,000 feet off the ground we could have cried in relief.

As soon as we got there we looked all around for a cave.

It took forever, but when we finally found it we I was sure we had walked past it before.

"You stay here. I'll put on my invisible cap and look around."

I nodded and stood outside the cave Riptide in hand.

There was I rumble in the distance. Looking I saw two figures headed this way. They both had blue hair.

I smiled as Spirit and Ducky came running to me. _Hey Perce where's the girl._

_Yeah I like the girl. She isn't dead is she? _

I shook my head or at least I hoped not. I heard a scream and decided to go in.

Telling the horses to stay and wait I took off into the cave. Running through dark tunnels I tried to find Grover or Annabeth, but I kept coming to dead ends.

When I finally came to a big door that had already been pushed open I saw a huge monster unlike anything I'd ever seen before.

It was 2 stories tall, as thick as a boat, part of it was covered in scales and feathers, but the rest was coated in these little teeth things, and it had a horse connected to its tail.

It was running around the room following an invisible Annabeth.

Running over to Grover who was tied to the wall I asked, "What is that thing."

Once I had cut him down he shrugged and said, "I don't know but we need to help Annabeth."

Nodding I whistled at the thing. When it turned and started chasing me the opposite way I had come I yelled to Grover, "Get the horses." Hoping he knew I meant the ones we came here on.

Luckily I didn't run into any dead ends before I came out into a big open area.

The ground had nothing on it no grass or rocks or anything. The only exit was back through the cave because the rest of the area was surrounded by ledge.

Annabeth came running out of the cave.

She ran under the beast stabbing the pocket knife I had found into his leg.

I could tell she was about to tell me some elaborate plan, but we didn't have time for that.

Quickly coming up with something I said, "Lay down right there," pointing to the ground.

**Annabeth's POV**

"What?" Here we were facing a huge monster and he wanted me to lay down.

He just nodded and said, "Lay down right there I have a plan."

"Great," I mumbled but laid down anyway.

Percy ran straight towards the monster with a yell. I thought he was going to pull Riptide out of his pocket but it must not have returned yet from where he dropped it in the tunnels.

Closing my eyes I missed Percy jump on the things tail/horse and douse where the horse's tail and the monster's tail connected with blue hair dye.

Instantly the horse was set free and without its balance the monster went stumbling back.

I opened my eyes to see it tumble towards me. I had expected death but it tripped and fell off the cliff.

My relief was short lived when I realized Percy went over with it. I don't know how but I caught him by his arm before he could go tumbling down to his death.

I was trying to pull him up but I realized it was no use. He was pulling me more than I was pulling him and he knew it.

Smiling he said, "I love you, Annabeth," and let go.

**(A/N, I know dramatic and cheesy ending. I think there is only going to be one more chapter. Thanks for reading. Please review.)**


	6. Ending

**(A/N, Last chapter.)**

**Percy's POV**

Falling. That was how I was going to die, falling. After all the things I fought and lived through, falling was the end. CRASH! Wow after that landing I wish I was dead. I had fallen into some weird branching tree. I was completely wrapped in the branches, but had no scratches or cuts. I admit I did freak a little when I thought that, just like Thalia, I had been turned into a tree. Then I realized that if I were a tree a.) I wouldn't be hyperventilating b.) I couldn't think and c.) I wouldn't be in so much pain. Groaning I moved around a little but not much. Well that hippy girl from Aphrodite would be proud, I was taking tree hugging to a whole new level.

I was stuck in that stupid tree for a long time. I tried to keep count but once I'd been there for two weeks I was too concerned I was going to die from starvation. If I had to guess I say I was there for about 5 weeks before I came to the brilliant revelation that I had hair dye in my pocket that would melt the tree from around me. Wanting to slap myself for not thinking about this sooner I twisted my arm behind my back to try and reach it. When I finally got it I had had to dislocate my shoulder to reach it. Making quick work of the branches I drooped to the ground and started the long journey back to camp.

**Annabeth's POV**

I still have nightmares about watching him fall. It has been 2 months since then and today were finally giving up. We looked around that area for a long time but we didn't find anything. Because there was no body we put of the burning of the shroud but everyone had given up hope. There was a nickering to my right. I looked up through teary eyes and saw Ducky dancing in his stall. Me and Grover had rode the horses back. They showed us away around the desert and back to camp. I had been taking care of all the blue-haired horses. Feeding them and sometimes riding them, but they reminded me of his last words, _'I love you, Annabeth.' _Gods I wanted him back. I heard the door creak open and knew it was time. Grover's word only confirmed that when he said, "Come on we need to go." Nodding I got up and followed him. He wasn't doing great either. He had cried for days after his disappearance. We both went to the stables a lot. No one bothered it or wondered why a building was left in the middle of the woods when it should have been torn down they just left it. I watched as Chiron gave his speech and then it was my turn. I was about to talk about how brave and funny and… the list could go on Percy was when I heard the most wonderful sound in my life. "You guys really must want to burn that thing huh. I mean once sure but twice? You are…" I cut him off with a huge bear hug. I whispered, "I love you too," In his ear. He laughed pulled back and kissed me right in front of everyone.

**(A/N, Happy ending, yay! Please tell me what you think. Thanks for reading.)**


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